For the last several decades, substantial attention has been paid to the problems encountered with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). SIDS has been designated as the highest cause of infant mortality during the first year of life, with one infant dying unexpectedly every hour in the United States. In most cases, SIDS is designated as the cause of death whenever a healthy infant dies suddenly, during sleep, for no apparent reason.
Although SIDS is the most common cause of documented death in children between the ages of one week and one year, with most cases occurring before six months of age, the cause of SIDS remains largely a mystery. Since the infant survival can be achieved if the onset of SIDS is detected, substantial efforts have been expended in developing systems for monitoring an infant's heart rate or breathing rate during sleep. The most prevalent of these prior art systems are commonly referred to as apnea monitors, which monitors the breathing of an infant in order to detect if apnea occurs, which is the cessation of voluntary breathing.
Although monitoring systems were initially developed for hospital use, the continuous monitoring of children in the hospital is not realistic. Consequently, systems for home use have been developed, but have proven to be incapable of providing consistent, uniform and dependable monitoring of a child without suffering from repeated false alarm signals. In view of the high level of anxiety experienced by parents of children who have been determined to be at high risk for SIDS, the repeated generation of false alarms by the monitoring equipment has caused as much anguish in the parents so as to reduce its true efficacy.
In an attempt to reduce the occurrence of false alarms and provide a more dependable monitoring system, several alternate products have been developed for use in the home. These products vary from active monitoring where a sensor is physically in contact with the infant to passive monitors which operate on sensors unconnected to a child. Monitors requiring direct attachment to the infant have fallen out of favor and have not been extensively employed, due to the uncomfortable and potentially dangerous environment created for the child.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,403,218 discloses a respiration monitor for use in detecting apnea which is representative of the construction of monitors of this nature. As is evident from Hoffman as well as similar disclosures, respiration monitors require electrodes to be physically mounted to the infant for monitoring the infant's respiration while asleep. In addition, adjusting the monitor for providing an alarm signal under appropriate conditions is extremely difficult and often not easily attained in a home care environment. Other similar devices are found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,851,816 and the references cited therein.
Prior art attempts have also been made to construct a monitoring system which is passive in nature and does not contact the body of the infant being monitored. One such typical system is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,438,771. In this patent, the cessation of movement of the infant is monitored with the system being activated whenever total inactivity has been found to occur for a predetermined period of time. Although systems of this nature have been found to be partially effective, they have still suffered from repeated false alarms, as well as being unable to provide the desired monitoring functions under all conditions.
Therefore, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a health care monitoring system which is employed for monitoring the overall health of an infant while sleeping and producing an alarm signal whenever preset criteria are not met.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an infant health care monitoring system having the characteristic features described above which is constructed for being employed without directly contacting the infant while still being capable of providing repeated, reliable monitoring functions, with virtually no or a minimum of false alarms.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an infant health monitoring system having the characteristic features described above which is employable by individuals in a home environment with simplicity and ease.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an infant health monitoring system having the characteristic features described above which is constructed for both accuracy as well as affordability, thereby allowing most individuals to be able to purchase the monitoring system for home use.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an infant health monitoring system having the characteristic features described above which is capable of simultaneously sensing a plurality of different functions for assuring dependability and effectiveness.
Other and more specific objects will in part be obvious and will in part appear hereinafter.